File Storage NAS:Use CEN to mount a NAS file system across VPCs in the same region

Feature description

CEN is a highly available network built on the global private network of Alibaba Cloud. CEN uses transit routers to establish cross-region connections between VPCs. This enables VPCs to communicate with data centers and establish flexible, reliable, and enterprise-level networks in the cloud.

Transit routers are available in two editions: Basic Edition and Enterprise Edition. Enterprise Edition is an upgraded version of Basic Edition and supports all features of Basic Edition. In addition, Enterprise Edition supports custom routing policies. For more information, see How transit routers work. For more information about the regions supported by each edition of transit routers, see Transit router editions.

Prerequisites

• Two VPCs are created in the China (Guangzhou) region and an ECS instance is created in each VPC. For more information, see Create a VPC with an IPv4 CIDR block.

• You are familiar with the security group rules that are applied to the ECS instances in the two VPCs. Make sure that the security group rules allow the VPCs to communicate with each other. For more information, see View security group rules and Add a security group rule.

• A CEN instance is created within your Alibaba Cloud account. A Basic Edition transit router exists in the China (Guangzhou) region of the CEN instance. If you do not have a Basic Edition transit router, you can use an Enterprise Edition transit router. For more information, see Use CEN and Enterprise Edition transit routers to enable intra-region communication between on-premises and cloud networks.

• A NAS file system is created in VPC 2. For more information, see Create a file system.

Step 1: Connect the VPCs to the transit router

Connect the VPCs to the transit router in the China (Guangzhou) region. Then, the VPCs automatically learn routes from each other to establish network communication.

1. On the Instances page, click the ID of the CEN instance.

2. On the Basic Information tab, click the Transit Router tab. Click Create Connection in the Actions column of the transit router in the region.

3. On the Connection with Peer Network Instance page, configure the following parameters and then click OK.

   • Instance Type: Select Virtual Private Cloud (VPC).

   • Region: Select the region where the network instance is deployed. In this example, select China (Guangzhou).

   • Transit Router: The system automatically creates a transit router in the selected region.

   • Resource Owner ID: Select the Alibaba Cloud account to which the VPC belongs. In this example, select Current Account.

   • Network Instance: Select the ID of the network instance. In this example, select VPC 1.

4. Repeat Step 3 to connect VPC 2 to the transit router in the China (Guangzhou) region.

   After both VPCs are connected to the transit router, they can automatically learn routes from each other, as shown in the following figures. You can manage the routes of the VPCs in the VPC console. For more information, see Create and manage a route table.

   Figure 1. Routes learned by VPC 1

   Figure 2. Routes learned by VPC 2

Step 2: Test network connectivity

After VPC 1 and VPC 2 are connected to the transit router, they can communicate with each other. In this example, VPC 1 is used to test the network connectivity between VPC 1 and VPC 2.

1. Log on to an ECS instance in VPC 1. For more information, see Connection method overview.

2. On the ECS instance, run the ping command to test whether VPC 1 can communicate with VPC 2.

   Note

   • In this example, VPC 1 runs the Alibaba Cloud Linux operating system. For more information about how to use the ping command in other operating systems, see the manual of the operating system that you use.

   • Before you run the ping command, check the security group rule of your ECS instance. Make sure that ICMP is enabled and the IP address or CIDR block is added to the security group rule. For more information, see View security group rules and Add a security group rule.

   ping <IP address of the ECS instance in VPC 2>

   The following echo reply packet indicates that VPC 1 and VPC 2 can communicate with each other.

   

Step 3: Mount the file system

References

• You can also use PrivateLink to mount a file system across VPCs in the same region. The difference is that you do not need to transfer data over the Internet. For more information, see Use PrivateLink to mount a NAS file system across VPCs in the same region.

• For information about how to mount a file system across regions or accounts, see Use CEN to mount a NAS file system across accounts and regions.

• For information about how to mount a file system in an on-premises data center, see Access file systems in on-premises data centers.

• For information about how to migrate data from an on-premises storage system or OSS bucket to a NAS file system, see Data migration.